A Judicial commission has indicted senior police officers for the death of a policeman who died in suspicious circumstances on Goras-Kalmi road in Sheopur district in January 2004.

Assistant sub-inspector Diwarilal Rawat was part of a police team that reportedly had an encounter with dacoit Mahavir Jat. While the dacoit and his accomplices managed to flee, the ASI died after taking a bullet in his head.

The police could not convince the commission that any ‘encounter’ actually took place nor did they have any explanation as to how did the PSI die of a .9 mm pistol bullet.

The police later claimed that an encounter with the dacoit took place in a village that falls in Rajasthan and that the bullet may have come from a dacoit’s pistol. The commission has found the role of then IG V K Pawar, then DIG Gajiram Meena, then SP (Sheopur) C S Malviya, then SDOP T S Nagraj, TI D S Parihar and PSI Harish Sharma (he was part of the village defence committee). A judicial inquiry by B M Gupta was initiated given the suspicious nature of Rawat’s death. The report was submitted months ago but the Government chose to keep it under wraps, because the Sohrabuddin Shaikh fake encounter killing had attracted national attention.

On Wednesday, the Cabinet appointed a sub-committee to go into the report’s findings. Home minister Himmat Kothari, who heads the three-member committee, said it would give its recommendations in a month’s time.

The commission noted that Rawat, who was part of an anti-dacoity team, had been earlier suspended for negligence but was mysteriously reinstated and included in the January 24 operation against dacoit Jat.

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